In day-to-day operations, healthcare enterprises receive and transmit tremendous amounts of medical data. Healthcare entities such as doctors' offices, hospitals and medical imaging facilities typically share medical data to ensure proper care and treatment for their patients. However, the effective exchange of medical data presents a two-fold challenge: First, each interested party wishes to have timely access to particular sets of medical data that it requires. Second, the medical data should be presented to each interested party in a user-friendly format that allows the party to quickly recognize and interact with particular data elements of interest.
While many systems for medical data exchange are currently in use, these systems are not standardized and each system presents the user with a different interface and a different user experience. As a consequence, a medical worker who travels between multiple healthcare facilities may be forced to learn several different systems for medical data entry, diagnosis and exchange. Each system typically has its own unique interface and its own unique protocols for entering, sending and receiving medical data, thus forcing the medical worker to learn these different systems and adapt his or her methods accordingly. This decreases the overall efficiency of the medical worker and increases the likelihood that mistakes will be made during a medical data exchange process.
Take, for example, a scenario involving a typical radiological exam utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In this scenario, a patient complaining of knee pain visits his or her general practitioner (GP). During this visit, a worker at the GP's office enters the patient's medical information into an electronic medical record (EMR) via the particular medical information system utilized by the GP. The GP, suspecting some type of internal knee injury, schedules an MRI for the patient at an off-site imaging facility. The GP's office must then transfer the patient's medical information and the MRI request to the imaging facility. The imaging facility receives the patient's medical information and the MRI request via its own medical information system and enters the MRI request. The imaging facility then performs the MRI and attaches the resulting MRI image to the patient's medical record as an image in a picture archive.
The MRI image must then be read by a radiologist to determine the extent of the knee injury, if any. A reading room assistant who assists the radiologist receives the MRI image and prepares it for the radiologist to read. The radiologist interprets the MRI image and creates an interpretive and/or diagnostic report based on his or her findings. The findings can then be incorporated into the patient's medical record. As with the GP and the imaging facility, the radiologist may have his or her own specific medical information system that differs from those utilized by the GP and/or the imaging facility.
Based on the radiologist's interpretation of the MRI image, the GP may refer the patient to an orthopedic surgeon to repair the knee injury. The patient's medical record is then forwarded to the orthopedic surgeon, who receives the medical record into his or her own medical information system. The orthopedic surgeon must then interpret the patient's medical information from the record and retrieve the MRI image to determine the proper treatment for the knee injury.
As is evident from this example scenario, the exchange of medical information between parties with disparate medical information systems has the potential to create confusion when one party must interpret another party's protocol for identification and categorization of medical data. Further, by requiring different healthcare entities to interpret and rearrange medical data to suit their own particular systems, the utilization of disparate medical information systems introduces a great deal of inefficiency into processes that require the exchange of medical information.